Couples Counselling

Supporting Connection, Communication, and Emotional Safety

Many couples come to counselling feeling stuck in patterns they don’t choose — recurring conflict, withdrawal, emotional distance, or a loss of intimacy that effort alone hasn’t resolved.

I offer couples counselling online and in Bega, using an approach called Intimacy From the Inside Out (IFIO). This is a trauma-aware, relational therapy that helps couples understand what happens inside each person during moments of disconnection, and how those internal experiences shape communication between partners.

Rather than focusing on who is right or wrong, this work supports couples to slow things down, reduce reactivity, and rebuild connection from a steadier place.

How Intimacy From the Inside Out (IFIO) Helps Couples

1. Understanding protective patterns
In moments of stress or conflict, protective responses often take over — anger, defensiveness, withdrawal, shutdown, or blame. IFIO helps couples recognise these responses as protective parts, rather than fixed traits or the whole of who someone is.

Seeing these reactions as protective often reduces escalation and opens space for understanding, rather than assuming the worst of each other.

2. Speaking for inner experience, not from reactivity
Communication breaks down most easily when we speak from a protective state. IFIO supports each partner to notice what is happening internally and to speak for that experience instead.

This shift allows communication to be clearer, less threatening, and easier for the other person to hear — which often changes the emotional tone of the relationship in meaningful ways.

3. Making room for old wounds without blame
Many couples find that unresolved childhood experiences quietly shape how they react to one another. IFIO is a trauma-informed couples approach that allows these vulnerabilities to be acknowledged with care, without turning the relationship into a battleground.

As compassion grows — for oneself and for one’s partner — couples often experience greater emotional safety, flexibility, and capacity for repair.

An Integrated Relational Approach

Intimacy From the Inside Out is grounded in Internal Family Systems (IFS) and informed by neuroscience, systems thinking, and attachment-based work. It brings together inner awareness and relational practice, supporting both partners to stay connected with themselves and with each other, even during difficult moments.

This work is collaborative, non-pathologising, and paced carefully. It assumes that each person has inner resources for regulation, care, and responsiveness — and that strengthening these internally supports the relationship as a whole.

Practical Details

Location: In-person sessions in Bega/online Australia-wide
Approach: IFIO (IFS-informed, trauma-aware, relational)
Getting started: Book a free 15-minute conversation to discuss fit

Couples counselling is not about fixing one person or forcing change. It’s about creating the conditions where understanding, repair, and connection become possible again.

RENEWAL WITH SUZANNE Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) online for adults and couples—specialising in self-doubt, the inner critic, and healing intergenerational patterns, with deep experience supporting women over 50.